The present invention is directed to a stitch, a method of making the stitch, and an apparatus making the stitch.
Overedge stitching is commonly used in the textile industries to prevent fraying and to provide a variety of decorative effects. One such decorative effect is to provide the appearance of a hand-made whip stitch. An example of a crochet stitch for achieving the appearance of a whip stitch on one side of a piece of fabric is shown in FIG. 1. Each apparent leg of the whip stitch is formed of two contiguous legs 50 of a lower loop. These legs are connected together by a bight 52 through which an upper loop extends. The upper loop has a bight 54 and two legs 56. The bight 54 engages the subsequent lower loop at the edge of the fabric. This simulated whip stitch is adequate for situations where only the lower side of the fabric is visible. However, from the vantage point of the upper side of the fabric, it does not have a whip stitch appearance because the legs 56 of the upper loop are non-contiguous and they form a series of V-shaped patterns so that collectively they make a zig-zag pattern in the margin.
According to the present invention, a conventional crochet stitching machine with relatively minor modifications is able to make a stitch which has the appearance of a whip stitch on both the upper and lower margin portions of the fabric This may be performed in various ways, only one example which is disclosed in this specification.